


If we overcome this separation (I feel like I will understand what ‘happiness’ is)

by Alch



Series: Among the Stars [1]
Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hoshi Meguri (IDOLiSH7), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, In-Canon, Introspection, M/M, Mind the Tags, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 08:15:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alch/pseuds/Alch
Summary: Lazu had clearly felt his body shattering into pieces the first time he had thought that Carnelian could laugh for someone else. He doesn't know why, he doesn't understand what growled in his chest, but that sensation of cracking inside, filling with rifts and never being able to be whole again, took his breath away. Carnelian was looking beyond him, through his cracks, and Lazu didn't exist anymore.[Just a couple of missing moments about Lazu and Carnelian].





	If we overcome this separation (I feel like I will understand what ‘happiness’ is)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nishanightray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishanightray/gifts), [kobattsun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kobattsun/gifts).



_All I want is to flip a switch_ _  
_ _before something breaks that cannot be fixed._

  
  
The blade is cold between his hands. Cold like the room he locked himself in, like the air that surrounds him, like the atmosphere of this lightless Star itself.  
The blade is cold like his body, that trembles, shaken by the chills, crushed down by the weight of what he did. He trembles and every shiver remembers him of what he did.  
He didn't know. He didn't know that it would happen.  
But it's a lie. He could have known. He should have known, foreseen what his actions would lead to.  
It was for the best - this way the Prince wouldn't risk to… risk to… wouldn't risk to… what?  
He did it for Him. For Him for Him for Him for Him.  
Because it hurt.  
He did it because it hurt badly. Seeing him getting away from the Palace, seeing him going away without him, the one who had sworn to make him happy, to show him how to smile. But the Prince was getting away and when he came back… Lazu was worried that he would find out what happiness was without him. And if that happened, if the Prince finally smiled, what would be of him then? If he gifted that sound (beautiful, he knows that it's beautiful even if he has never heard it) to someone else, what meaning would have his existence?  
  
Lazu had clearly felt his body shattering into pieces the first time he had thought that Carnelian could laugh for someone else. He doesn't know why, he doesn't understand what growled in his chest, but that sensation of cracking inside, filling with rifts and never being able to be whole again, took his breath away. Carnelian was looking beyond him, through his cracks, and Lazu didn't exist anymore.  
  
He had to do that. To talk to the King, to tell Him everything. He had to do it or otherwise nothing would have been left of Carnelian, of his Carnelian. Or maybe it was him that nothing would have been left of? He had to do it, but now, in this cold room, with his own blade between his hands, for the first time he realizes he made a mistake.  
  
The Prince’s screams are still filling his head. He waited for his father to go away, for everyone to go away, before bursting into a cry that Lazu didn’t see coming, that threatened to make him fall apart even more than the fear of losing him. And he screamed, Carnelian screamed with all the breath in his lungs, screamed in a pain that Lazu never thought could exist, curled up on the ground with his fists clenched and a desperation that made him shiver.  
  
When he sent him away, Lazu was happy. And in that happiness, he understood his mistake. He should have never been happy to be away from his Prince - the blame stained him, corrupted him irreparably and there's nothing he can do now to go back and fix things: Carnelian feels so distant from him, almost as if Lazu ended up on his own star, isolated from everything, and Alba was looking at him from above with a severe look, judging him for his crime.  
  
He should have told him. There, while he was still tormenting himself, Lazu opened his mouth and he thought, “It was me, I told the King about Coda. I'm sorry”, but the words didn’t come out, the air didn’t vibrate with such heavy sounds, no matter how much he tried. Stained with guilt, Lazu turned out to be coward and selfish, the lowest, someone who doesn't deserve forgiveness.  
  
Going away is the only thing he has left. Staying alone is everything he deserves.  
And that blade, cold on his skin, that blade with which he swore to protect the Prince, somehow gives him a kind of relief now that it’s turned against himself.  
Because Lazu wants to atone for his crime, to ask for forgiveness and, if his voice doesn't help him, if his intentions betray him, then his actions will talk - Carnelian doesn't need that stain on his light skin, that disgrace at his side, ready to hurt him again and again and again…  
  
_If I died, if I died confessing my sins, if I died for him… would he smile, then?_  
  
He knows how to do it. Despite his age, Lazu knows how to make his body stop living in a matter of seconds - after all, he has been trained. And he shouldn't hesitate, he shouldn't think twice about it as if he has some other options: Carnelian’s screams and his hate are telling him there is no other solution. But the guilt made him weak, sentimental, limp. He keeps making mistakes. He makes mistakes with every breath he takes, with every moment that passes.  
  
Suddenly, he brings the blade to his neck, its edge now caressing the skin - there’s some kind of pleasure in the action that Lazu doesn’t completely understand but that makes him stall, tasting the power he’s holding in his own hands: that power over his life has never been as clearly as it is now, it moves between his fingers and on that blade like a primordial instinct, a visceral pleasure that knows no logic, that rationality cannot comprehend.  
  
Would he do it? Would he end his existence like that? Carnelian would deserve it - he would wish for his death if he knew how he betrayed him. And for Carnelian Lazu is ready to do anything. Dying for him would be easy - taking his own life, as the cold penetrates his skin, as the silence deafens his ears, is harder.  
  
«Lazu? Lazu!»  
He trembles. He trembles and his hand slips and he feels the blade leaving a cut on his skin, something slimy and warm streaming down his neck.  
His King's voice stops his action and Lazu feels like he has been deprived of that power over himself that he loved so morbidly.  
  
«Lazu? Where are you?!»  
Screams. Screams again, and he wishes they could absolve him. If they doomed him to that action before, maybe now they are saving him from it, telling him to stand up again, to live on.  
But Lazu doesn't know how to deceive himself.  
Those screams keep condemning him, they just chose a different kind of punishment. A worse one.  
  
He stands, an odd tranquility takes over his body now. Without any rush, he cleans his wound first, then his neck. He fixes himself up, as solemn in the dressing ritual as if he was preparing himself for battle, even though there are no armors nor weapons that could hide his crime, protecting him from his own sins.  
As he walks out, as he answers to his king in the most humble way, Lazu knows what is waiting for him from now on: a life lived in silence, a life following Carnelian’s back, constantly witnessing what he took away from him and what he will never be able to give him back not matter how much he tries. He will never confess what he did because he doesn't deserve to be absolved and he doesn't deserve hate - he doesn't deserve anything from that king he hurt so much.  
He will turn into nothing, nothing and darkness, just like their Star. Void. He won't feel anything anymore.  
Carnelian will talk again about his pain and bearing it will be his eternal punishment - bearing it and never forgetting what he did. Never, not as long as his body will live.   


_Rain or shine I don’t feel a thing_  
_Just some information upon my skin._  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
_But God I want to feel again._ _  
_ Oh God, _I want to feel again._

  
«Lazu? Lazu!»  
That feeling… the feeling of wanting to say something and not being able to do it, Lazu hasn’t felt it for a long time. There’s something in the voice of the one who’s calling him, something that he’s not able to define, but that he recognizes by instinct. That it hurts, just like the hurt he has felt for a long time, such a long time...    
  
«Lazu, please… I’m begging you...»  
It’s wrong. Even when all the other sensations are slipping away from his body and his mind, he knows that there’s something wrong with these words - he instinctively knows, in the same way he instinctively knows who’s talking now.  
His King.  
And his King doesn’t beg.  
He gives orders. He commands. He takes decisions. He moves forward no matter what. For everyone’s sake. But he doesn’t beg. And he doesn’t beg him. He has never done that.  
  
So what happened?  
  
Opening his eyes is difficult, more difficult than anything, almost as difficult as carrying the sins he committed. But Lazu knows he must do it for his King.  
He opens his eyes and takes in the blurry image of Carnelian’s face. Pale. Dirty. Overwhelmed by a pain that hurts more than the stab wound he received at the abdomen.  
After all, it has always been like that: the biggest pain Lazu has ever felt was Carnelian’s.  
Is this his fault?  
His King is looking at him so intensely… it must be his fault.  
  
And he wishes he could hug him. He wishes he could hug him and ask for forgiveness now that he knows everything, now that he revealed everything to him… Forgiveness, forgiveness for each and every sin he committed. Not absolution, never absolution, but at least forgiveness...  
But he would dirty him. He already dirtied him - he can blurrily see his beautiful dress stained with the blood his body is losing…  
Ironic how the sin is always bloody. Bloody then, bloody now.  
Lazu is so tired…  
  
«Stay with me. Please Lazu, stay with me...»  
«Why…?»  
Why does he want him to stay? Lazu doesn’t want to… everything now feels so much bigger than him, especially the expression painted on the King’s face, which he would really like to wipe out, but he can’t even look at it.  
  
«Because without you, I...»  
The tears on Carnelian’s face stream down until they hit Lazu’s. They fall, touching him, and he feels them -  
Tip, tip-tip. ...tip. tip-tip.  
Each one of them carries a weight. And each one awakes something in him.  
Carnelian is crying.  
His King is crying.  
For him.  
  
«I- I am s-so… sor…ry»  
Lazu feels suffocated, but not because of the wound. It’s because of his King’s tears. Everything seems to be awakening now that those tears have touched him and he can feel anything, everything all at once.  
It’s suffocating. Smothering. He feels like he’s dying.  
He doesn’t want to feel.  
He doesn’t want to feel.  
He doesn’t want to feel.  
Feeling hurts.  
This guilt hurts.  
Carnelian’s tears hurt.  
His own words hurt.  
His own pain hurts.  
So badly.  
God, please make it stop.  
  
«It’s alright. Everything is alright. It’s alright, Lazu, everything is over now.»  
«And… your… wish…?»  
  
He lowers his gaze. He doesn’t have to do that. It’s wrong.  
  
«I will find another way to make it true. Lazu… I can’t hear that voice anymore...It’s so much quieter now»  
«I… am… happy.»  
Happy. Is he happy? Is this happiness? Is happiness supposed to hurt this much?  
Ah, how he wishes he could stretch a hand to reach Carnelian’s face and caress it, just for a moment, to comfort him.  
Lazu is happy without knowing what happiness is, as he discovers every single emotion again at the same time, while Carnelian’s tears give him back all the sensations he banished once so that he could remain at his side and never make mistakes again, so that he could bear that guilt without going insane.  
  
Discover himself again.  
He took everything away from himself.  
Carnelian is giving it back to him without even realizing.  
  
And it would be so easy to give in now. So easy to give into the tiredness, the pain, the warmth of Carnelian’s arms that are holding him. It would be so easy, so tempting, so inviting. There’s a world full of words that Lazu can fully understand the meaning of now, for the first time.  
  
«Can we start over. Lazu? Let’s start over…»  
«Are you... happy… now?»  
He wanted to ask. He always thought about asking whenever all this would have ended. It’s all that matters.  
Tip-tip. Tip-tip-tip-tip. Tip-tip-tip-tip-tip-tip-tip-tip.  
Carnelian nods.  
So happiness is really supposed to hurt.  
  
«I will be if you don’t die.»  
«T-the-n… S-smi-le.»  
  
_Oh_ .  
He was right.  
He has always been right.  
Carnelian’s smile is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.  
The warmest thing he has ever felt.  
And suddenly Lazu doesn’t want to feel tired anymore, he doesn’t want to give in, he doesn’t want to _end_ .  
Because there’s so much to see for him, still. And to hear. What sound will have Carnelian’s laughter? And what’s the name of the thing he’s feeling right now, that transcends the body and makes him feel like everything is possible, even Carnelian’s forgiveness?  
It’s the most beautiful, most painful feeling. It makes his chest and throat tighten. And then, it makes everything explode, until he’s out of breath. It burns wildly and then gently… so gently…  
How beautiful Carnelian is. So beautiful… The Sun that Alba never had - he’s blooming now for the first time, as he smiles.  
  
«I won’t die,» he says. He swears. He swears it to his King. And to his King Lazu doesn’t lie anymore.  
To his happy King, Lazu won’t lie ever again.

 

 _Down my arms, a thousand satellites_  
_suddenly discover signs of life._

**Author's Note:**

> I finally found the courage to publish this silly thing, hope you liked it!  
> A big thank you to nishanightray (who also beta-read this♥) and kobattsun for their constant support and for having introduced me to the big world of I7!


End file.
